Terra-Rising: Is Matt Serra the Best, or Just in the Best Position

There was a very positive response to my pieces on Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson, so I figured that leading up to the fight between Serra and St. Pierre I would run a piece covering the greatest welterweight in the world and the greatest underdog the sport has ever seen. I figured that, sense Serra needs a bit more of an explanation, I’d start with him.

Matt Serra is not the most dominant fighter in the world, he is not the most dangerous fighter in the world, and he is not the most feared fighter in the world. If anything, he is the cinderella of MMA, and so many fans seem to be watching the clock like school kids at the brink of summer, waiting for it to strike midnight.

Serra is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelt, and he makes no secret about it. He is backed by one of the best kickboxing coaches in the sport, Rey Luongo, and he has no problem talking about it. He comes out of Renzo Gracie’s lineage, which he brags about constantly. Some people think he’s hysterically candid, some people think he’s a loudmouthed street punk with no respect for some of the most established fighter in the sport.

Whatever you think of Serra, whether you are for him or against him, chances are you weren’t expecting to see him knock out Georges St. Pierre. Then again, I doubt his own mother expected to see that.

I’ll get into the matchup between these two guys later, but I would like to explain why Serra won that fight and why, just in general, he wins.

Serra was regarded as one of the most explosive groundnpound fighters in the 155 pound division, when the division was still in its early stages. He was regarded one of the great Jiu-Jitsu guys to come out of that division, but his career fell a few steps back when, after beating Shonie Carter into the mat for 14 consecutive minutes, he was caught with a spinning backfist and laid out. That, for the most part, is what people talked about when they talked about Matt Serra.

That fight alone is probably the reason why he’s a huge underdog. He went the distance with Karo Parisyan and BJ Penn, he dropped a close decision to Din Thomas, but it’s that highlight reel knockout, mostly seen outside of the context of a fight that Serra would have won if he had lasted another 10 seconds, makes him an underdog.

Let’s not forget that Serra has an explosive submission game. He beat Takanori Gomi at Abu Dhabi, and I remember seeing Serra, on the very first UFC card I watched, catch a triangle choke on Kelly Dullanty. Still, it had been a long time since Serra really dominated someone. Before the fight with St. Pierre, he had fought 4 times in 3 years (all on UFC cards), and all of those fights went to decision. His last finish was the Dullanty choke out, and his only three finishes before that were the first three fights of his career, the closest one being more than 7 years ago now.

The question I’m bringing up is not one of whether Serra should have had a title shot. I think the answer to that is clearly “no.” Without TUF 4, Serra wouldn’t even have been talked about as a member of the pack at 170 pounds. Still, it makes me wonder, “does Serra have St. Pierre’s number?”

It’s strange, because there are a handful of matchup anamolies in the sport that happen, even when we aren’t sure that they should. While it’s possible that Matt Serra has become genuinely skilled enough to beat the #1 ranked welterweight in the world, it’s also possible that this is the one matchup that he has worked out, and it seems strange that they wouldn’t have Serra take one fight in between these two to work that out. Then again, they had planned on it.

I believe that Serra is a great fighter, but I am simply being genuine. Many people say “Respect the Hardware” and I won’t go so far as to call the matchup with St. Pierre a fluke. I respect him enough to believe that his skill played a large roll in that fight. Still, it’s hard to look at this matchup from a statistical point of view, and wonder if this fight could be anything else than the freak of nature that it appears.

I guess we’re bound to find out.